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"CHASTENED, BUT NOT KILLED." 



A DTSCOURSE 

BY HENRY DAELING, D. D. 



"(Sftnsttnnl, but not ivitUl" 



DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED ON THE 

DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, 

AUGUST 4tii, 1864. 



FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ALBANY, 
By henry I)A11LING, D. D., 



PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. 



ALBANY: 

A'AN BEXTHUTSEN's STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. 

1864. 



6X503 
•05 












CORRESPONDENCE. 



Albany, August 8, 1864. 

Rev. H. Darling, D. D.: 

Dear Sir — Having listened to your Discourse delivered on the occasion 

of the National Fast with much pleasure, and having heard a general 

desire expressed that it should be published, we hereby respectfully 

request a copy for that purpose. 

OTIS ALLEN, S. M. KISSICK, 

J. 0. COLE, ABRM. KIRK, 

DEODATUS WRIGHT, SAMUEL ANABLE, 

B. P. JOHNSON, JOHN C. WARD, 

S. HALE, S. N. BACON, 

WILLIAM WHITE, JOHN DOUGLASS, 

Z. BELKNAP, WM. H. ROSS, 

JAS. C. CROCKER, H. .S. McCALL. 



Albany, August 13, 1864. 
To Otis Allen, Esq., John 0. Cole, Esq., Judge Wright, and others: 

Gentlemen — The Discourse you so kindly request for publication, has 
already in its general outline of thought, and in much of its language, 
been given to the public. It will be found tn an Article, written by my- 
self, and printed in the Presbyterian Qvi,arter.ly Review for October, 1862. 
This fact has strongly inclined me to decline your. request; and would 
have constrained me to do so, had not you, and others who listened to 
its delivery, expressed a very earnest desire for its publication. 

In consenting to its appearance in this form, I should add, that I am 
influenced by the fact that in its original publication, it is entirely inac- 
cessible to the great majority of those who now desire its reading and 
circulation; and, also, that many points of interest and importance have 
been added, while others are omitted. 

Should its publication serve, in the smallest degree, to promote the 
interests of truth in our beloved country, I shall be thankful. 

Most truly, your friend, 

HENRY DARLING. 



" Who murmurs that in these dark daj-s 

His lot is cast? 
God's hand within the shadow lays 
The stones whereon His gates of praise 

Shall rise at last. 
Turn and o'erturn, O outstretched Hand! 

Nor stint, nor stay; 
The years have never dropped their sand 
On mortal issue vast and grand 

As ours to-day." 



SERMON. 



Psalms 3, 5, and 6. 

" I laid me down and slept; I awaked: for the Lord sustained me. I will not 
be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me 
round about."' 

The titles prefixed to the Psalms, though not 
divinely inspired, may still be regarded as pre- 
senting a truthful account of the peculiar circum- 
stances in the life of their respective authors 
that led to their composition. They are found 
in all the old Hebrew manuscripts, and were so 
highly esteemed by the Jews, that they called 
the few which are destitute of them — thirty- 
three in all — " Orphan Psalms." To the one from 
which my text is taken this morning, the title 
prefixed is, " A Psalm of David when he fled 
from Absalom his son." A brief reference to that 
incident in the life of the Psalmist is therefore 
essential to its right understanding. 

There was a rebellion in Israel. A man nour- 
ished at the king's table, and himself a scion of 
royalty, sought to dethrone David, and to take the 
government into his OAvn hands. And to this end, 
the most unjust accusations were brought against 



the king. Taking a conspicuous position at the 
gate of Jerusalem, when " any man that had a con- 
troversy came to the king for judgment, Absa- 
lom said unto him. See thy matters are good 
and right, but there is no man deputed of the 
king to hear thee. Oh, that I were made judge 
in the land, that every man wliicli hath any suit 
or cause might come unto me, and I would do him 
justice !" And to this base flilsehood was added 
the blandishments of an assumed friendship. "And 
it was so that when any man came nigh to him to 
do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took 
him and kissed him.'" 

In time, to the most gigantic proportions did 
the rebellion grow. Treason found its way into 
the very palace of David. Some of the king's 
counsellors became his deceivers, and went over 
to the enemy. Crowds from every portion of 
Judea flocked to the standard of the usurper. 
"The people increased continually," is the sacred 
record with Absalom. And a trusty messenger, 
sent out by David to ascertain the jDOjiular feeling, 
upon his return reported that " the hearts of the 
men of Israel are after Absalom." Indeed, to 
such an extent did the rebellion finally go, that 
nothing remained for David to do but ignomini- 
ously to fly from Jerusalem with the ark of God, 



9 

and the comparatively few who might still adhere 
to his standard. 

And what a sad spectacle was that flight ! We 
cannot read the inspired words that record it with- 
out the profoundest emotions. And David said 
unto his servants that were with him at Jerusa- 
lem, " Arise and let us flee, for we shall not else 
escape from Absalom; make speed and depart, 
lest he overtake us suddenly and bring evil upon 
us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword." 
# # # "And David went up by the ascent of Mount 
Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head 
covered, and he went barefoot ; and all the people 
that was with him covered every man his head, 
and they went uj), weeping as they went up." 

The first place at which the fugitive king and 
his company stopped was Bahurim, a small village 
just beyond the Mount of Olives, and which seems 
to have been reached uj^on the evening of the 
same day that he left the capital. And it was 
there — at Bahurim — upon the morning following 
that David indited, and doubtless sang with his 
harp, this Psalm. ^ 

And how remarkable the faith in God, that it 



* Bonar on the Psalms, page 10. 
2 



10 

exhibits ! Men in trouble are not wont to lie 
down in quiet sleep. Great fear makes that serene 
repose, in which all the senses are locked in un- 
conscious slumber, almost an impossibility. It is 
when men are calm, and free from the perturba- 
tions of alarm, that they are able to give them- 
selves to sleep. Yet precisely this was the condi- 
tion of David. Though a fugitive from his throne, 
and the capital of his kingdom, and almost de- 
serted by those who should have been his friends 
and protectors, yet so full of ftiith in God was the 
Psalmist, as to be able to say : "I laid me down 
and slept ; I awaked : for the Lord sustained me. 
I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people 
that have set themselves against me round about." 
Surely, it is not strange, that when the waves 
of sorrow and calamity have appeared to be ready 
to swallow uj) the Church, that Christians have 
so often gone to this Psalm to strengthen their 
faltering hope. Jonah did this in his living en- 
tombment. A part of his jDrayer to God, when in 
that perilous position in the deep, was a quotation 
from this Psalm.* Like that which Luther used 
to sing in his time of trouble — the forty-sixth 

* Jonah ii. 9. 



11 

Psalm— this has, in all ages, been the song of 
God's people in trial. 

But before proceeding to notice the faith in God 
that David possessed in the midst of a great na- 
tional calamity, let it be carefully observed that 
his f\iith was not without ivorks. When so sorely 
pressed by Absalom as to be constrained in the 
most pitiful manner to flee, David did not calmly 
resign himself to sleep, trusting that God, irre- 
spective of his own exertions, would deliver him 
from his enemies. The king was too well ac- 
quainted with the mode of the divine procedure 
in such circumstances to be guilty of such folly. 
His fiiith that God would certainly deliver him 
from all his foes came after he had to this end, 
himself employed every instrumentality in his 
power, and without this, he could never have cher- 
ished so unwavering a confidence. That quiet 
sleep of the king at Bahurim, so beautifully ex- 
pressive of his faith, was preceded by the forma- 
tion of the wisest plans for his defence, and by 
their most vigorous prosecution. 

Thus, to defeat in the cabinet of Absalom the 
artful counsel of Ahithophel, David sent thither 
his trusty friend Hushai, the Archite ; and that he 
mio-ht have those with him who would faithfully 
transmit important intelligence to the king, Zadok 



V2 

and Abiathar, the priests, were, with the ark of 
God, sent hack to Jerusalem. David employed 
the most wily strategy against his enemies. He 
sent spies into their camp ; and, doubtless, at the 
same time summoned every loyal friend of the 
government immediately to flock to his standard ; 
for very soon after this we find him employed in 
the organization of a mighty army, " numbering 
the people and setting captains of thousands and 
captains of hundreds over them." 

And need I say that this is always essential to 
the exercise of a true fiiith ? In a time of per- 
sonal or national trouble, to cherish a confidence 
that God will help us, so long as we Jail to help 
ourselves, is the most arrogant presumption. For 
any man, or for any nation, when environed with 
danger, to sit down and wdth folded arms, sing, "God 
is my refuge and strength, a very present help in 
trouble," is little else than blasphemy. That song 
of sweet and confiding faith in God, can only be 
rightfully sung by those who have first sought 
themselves to work out from the danger, their own 
salvation. 

But I must hasten to notice the faith of David, 
in this great rebellion of Absalom against his 
throne and government, a fiiith that was so strong 
as to lift him above all unfavorable outward ap- 



18 

pearances, and to give him such unwavering con- 
fidence in the final result as upon the very morn- 
ing after his exile to say, " I laid me down and 
slept ; I awaked : for the Lord sustained me. I 
will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that 
have set themselves against me round about." 

And, doubtless, one reason for this foith — one 
ground upon which it stood — was David's deep and 
profound conviction of the unrighteousness and wick- 
edness of the rebellion. 

David was not the man to arrogate to himself 
perfection, or to deny, in many particulars, his 
own personal or official shortcomings. But just 
as with every man who will frankly confess his 
real faults, David was, for that very reason, all the 
more incensed when falsely accused. And well 
did he know that such was the character of the 
accusations that Absalom brought against him. 
He had never perverted judgment in Judea. It was a 
base slander of his government to affirm it. 

With what intense loathing, also, must the 
whole, honest, and manly nature of David have 
regarded the means employed by Absalom to pro- 
mote revolt ! A friendship, extended so far as to 
lead him to take into his royal arms, and to favor 
with a royal kiss every man that approached him, 
but which was all hollow-hearted and assumed, 



14 

how could that man, who, in character, was after 
God's own heart, have looked upon such an act 
with any other feelings than those of righteous 
indignation ? 

There was, in a word, no true ground for the 
rebellion of Absalom. It sought to overthrow a 
government for the redress of no real wrong. It 
was a matter of personal ambition. It was a sin- 
gle man who was seeking for himself a place of 
power, and who would revolutionize an empire 
that he might gain it. And will God prosper such 
an enterprise 1 Will He suffer a permanent vic- 
tory to be achieved by any one in so unholy a 
cause ? Will He give the sanction of success to 
this false accusation that Absalom brought against 
the government of David, and to those dissimula- 
tions which he practiced to secure popular favor? 
The Psalmist could not believe that such an issue 
was possible. The God of justice was still uj^on 
the throne, and although in His sovereignty, and 
for the accomplishment of His wise purposes. He 
might grant to this rebellion a momentary triumph, 
yet, in the md^ David Avas certain that it would 
be destroyed. The very character of God was 
pledged to such a result. 

By this remark I do not, of course, mean to say 
that every unrighteous and wicked rebellion will 



15 

certainly be crushed. That success is the inftxlli- 
ble rule of right, would be, in the politics of this 
world, a very dangerous principle to introduce. 
Yet the fact that any cause is wrong, has been 
conceived in falsehood, and promoted by deceit, is 
that not one ground for the belief that it will be 
unsuccessful ? Though virtue is militant here, 
and is sometimes overborne by vice, is she not 
usually victorious ? 

'■' God's justic'J is a bed where we 

Our anxious Iiearts may lay. 
And weary with ourselves may sleep 

Our discontent away. 
For right is right since God is God, 

And right the day must win; 
To doubt, would be disloyaltj-, 

To falter, would be sin." 

But still another ground upon which David 
rested his faith in the ultimate triumph of his 
cause was the recollection of past deliverances. 

Frequently before this had " his enemies com- 
passed him about, and the assembly of the wicked 
enclosed him ;" but always had he escaped from 
them ! And now, as the remembrance of such 
experiences rushed upon his mind, it kindled in 
his bosom the hope that the Lord would help 
him, and from every danger that threatened him 
find out a way of escape. To this, reference is 



16 

doubtless had in the seventh verse of this Psalm : 
" Arise, Lord ; save me, my God ; for thou 
hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek- 
bone ; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly." 
David remembered how, when a 230or shepherd 
boy a lion and a bear attacking his flock and threat- 
ening to devour them, the Lord delivered them into 
his hands. He recalled that time when, in the 
providence of God, confronting that giant of 
Gath, Goliath, his little sling and a few smooth 
stones from a brook, stretched the Philistine 
champion a corpse at hig feet. He thought of the 
javelins that Saul had hurled against him, but 
that passing by him, had smote harmless into the 
palace walls ; of that critical period in his life, 
when the hosts of his enemies, surrounding his 
house, Michal, his then faithful wife, let him down 
through a window so thai he escaped; and of 
those many days of wandering in the strongholds 
of Ziph and Maon, where, though hunted by 
Saul, in his own language, "like a partridge upon 
the mountains," yet the Lord delivered him not 
into his hands. And now He who has thus pro- 
tected and guarded me all my life long, and who 
has thus brought me out safely from so many dan- 
gers, will He — thought David — desert me ? Deliv- 
ered by the almighty power of God from the lion 



17 

and the bear, from the might of Philistia's cham- 
pion, and from the rage of the infuriated Saul, will 
I now fall in this unjust and wicked rebellion of 
Absalom? The past mercies of God to David 
were to him the ground of his present confidence. 
He could not believe that, after Jehovah had thus 
cared for him, and had thus succoured him in so 
many hours of danger. He would now leave him to 
die ignominiously by the hands of his own son. 

And in thus making the remembrance of past 
deliverances one ground for present hope, was not 
David right ? 

Manoah, the father of Samson, because he had 
seen an angel and conversed with him, so far 
yielded to the popular belief of his day, as to sup- 
pose that he would certainly die. But much wiser 
than Manoah, was his wife's interpretation of this 
event. From God's kindness to them, as exhib- 
ited in receiving their acts of worship, she confi- 
dently inferred His purpose of love toward them. 
" If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would 
not have received a burnt-offering and a meat- 
offering at our hands, neither would He have 
showed us all these things, nor would, as, at this 
time, have told us such things as these." In a 
word, there is something in the immutability of 

3 



18 

the divine character, in the changelessness of 
His purposes and of His love, both to individuals 
and nations, that gives us good ground for regard- 
ing the experience of past deliverances, as the 
pledge for present succour. 

But the faith of David in this hour of his na- 
tion's extremity, had, I am quite sure, a firmer 
ground upon which to rest, than either his deep 
conviction of the unrighteousness and wickedness 
of this rebellion, or his remembrance of past deliv- 
erances. David had a truthful — perhaps inspi- 
red — conception of the divine mission, that, in the 
great purposes and plans of God toward our race, 
his nation was to perform. 

The Psalmist was not the man to be blind to 
the sins of his people. He had too keen a vision 
of iniquity to permit it anywhere to exist, unob- 
served. And that the Jcavs were a wicked people, 
" a people laden with iniquity, the seed of evil- 
doers," David well knew. He saw how sadly 
they, as a nation, had departed from God, and 
how they had forgotten Him who had " brought 
them as a vine out of Egypt, and planting them 
in the goodly land of Canaan, had caused them in 
their fruitfulness to send out their boughs unto 
the sea, and their branches unto the river." There 
was no self-righteousness with David, whether it 



19 

was to himself or to his nation, that his vision was 
directed. 

But notwithstanding all this unrighteousness 
and sin, the Psalmist well knew how vastly supe- 
rior in good-order, liberty, virtue, and religion, his 
nation was to all the other people of the earth. 
Already, by their goodly example, had the Jews 
been a blessing to the world; and as a nation just 
entering upon their existence, how natural to sup- 
pose that their career of beneficence had just com- 
menced. That free government which they had 
received from God himself, and those sublime rev- 
elations of immortal truth which had been made 
to them, were these to be forever lost ? Was the 
darkness of that bondage in Egypt again to en- 
velope the world ? The purposes of God, in their 
wonderful exode, and in their still more wonder- 
ful journey in the wilderness, when, 

For them the rocks dissolved into a flood, 
The dews condensed into angelic food, 
Their very garments, sacred old, yet new, 
And time forbid to touch them as he flew, 

were these already accomplished? David could 
not believe it possible. 

That God designed by this affliction to purify 
His people, and out of this terrible furnace of fire 
to brine; them with all the dross of their sin con- 



20 

sumed, the Psalmist could well understand. This, 
he knew, was just w^iat Jehovah always does for 
the individual or the nation that He loves. But 
the destruction of Israel, or in other words, the 
ultimate success of this rebellion of Absalom, 
David could not for one moment believe. In his 
palace, and especially in that " chamber over the 
gate " — David's place for private prayer — he had 
had many a bright vision of the future glory of 
liis country. He had seen her going on in a race 
of unparalleled prosperity, scattering everywhere 
through this dark world the blessings of a true 
liberty and of a pure religion. And now, in this 
career, is she to be suddenly arrested? It was 
not thus that David read the designs of God 
toward his people. Their present affliction he 
believed to be but for their holy discipline, and 
though long extended, yet finally the great end 
secured, David had not a doubt but that Israel 
would go, on and on, fulfilling for many genera- 
tions yet to come, her divine mission of benevo- 
lence to the world. And it was this assurance 
that made the Psalmist so calm and peaceful, in 
the midst of all the sad and perilous circum- 
stances that surrounded him, and enabled him at 
Bahurim, upon the very morning after his flight 
from Jerusalem to sing. "I laid me down and 



21 

slept ; I awaked ; for the Lord sustained me. I 
will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that 
have set themselves against me round about." 

The application of these remarks to the pecu- 
liar circumstances in which as a nation we are 
now placed, is to every mind perfectly obvious. 
Indeed there is scarcely a single point in which 
the parallel is not perfect. This war is the rebel- 
lion of a son against his parent. It is Absalom 
against David. And at first too, comparatively 
weak, it has, at last, grown into the most gigantic 
proportion. Indeed, truth constrains us to con- 
fess that David is, sometimes fugitive before Absalom, 
and loyalty is, with us sitting down, as did of old that 
man of God, at a second Bahurim. 

And doubtless the first duty of this nation, is, 
to act just as David did in like circumstances ; 
to evoke for this struggle every element of its 
strength. To talk in these perilous times of 
trusting in God for our deliverance, so long as we 
remain as a nation in supineness and sloth, may 
have a pious sound to some ears, but really, it is 
all cant, aye, more, it is the most arrogant pre- 
sumption. True, all real causality is with God, 
and without Him we can do nothing, but is it not 
always through the instrumentality of second 
causes that Jehovah employs His efficiency ? It 



22 

would be no more vain for a sinner to sit down in 
spiritual idleness, and expect that God would, 
irrespective of his own activities, interpose for 
his salvation, than for this nation to hope that 
Absalom would be defeated and slain, while yet 
David did not summon to his aid the armies of 
Israel. It is indeed well for us in these troublous 
times to rememl^er that our help is in God, and 
even to sing that sweet song of confiding faith, 
" The Lord is our refuge and strength," but 
neither the feeling, or the song have any meaning, 
unless at the same time we summon to the strug- 
gle every resource of power and influence that 
we possess. 

Here, then, is unquestionably our first duty, 
and let no one seek in any way to evade it. The 
question, what can I personally do to assist the 
government under which I live to crush this re- 
bellion, is one that every man should now dili- 
gently propose to himself; and by the reply that 
his own conscience gives to this interrogation, 
should all his conduct be governed. This is no 
time for hesitation or delay, for carping criticism, 
or for that inquiry that self-interest is so prone 
to make ; how is this or that going to affect me ? 
" the politician with a sharp eye to the future 
position of his party, the merchant to his con- 



Z.C> 



tracts, the money holder to his property, the mili- 
tary officer to his chances of joreferment, and the 
private citizen to his comforts." We are un- 
worthy sons of noble sires ; we are the ungrateful 
recipients of divine blessings, if, as when now, 
everything truly valuable in this country is im- 
periled, we hesitate at any sacrifice of either 
time, or property, or life, that duty calls u2)on us 
to make. 

Our country, the mother on whose lajj we have 
all been nourished, and from whom we have all 
drawn our whole political life, wounded and bleed- 
ing from the blows that she has received from her 
own ungrateful and rebellious children, now turns 
to us to staunch her wounds, and to save her from 
an untimely death, and in the jDlaintive accents 
of mingled hope and despair, cries to each of her 
loyal sons " Behold thy MotherT Shall the sup- 
pliant voice be unheeded ? Owe we her no debt 
of gratitude which we should now pay ? If to lay 
the foundations of this republic, our fathers did 
well to pour out both their blood and treasure, is 
the life and money of their children too precious 
to be given for its maintenance ? Our present 
struggle is either all wrong, and every man who 
gives it the slightest encouragement is to be con- 
demned, or it is right, and Ave are all together 



24 

bound at whatever cost, to carry it on to a trium- 
phant conclusion. 

But let us turn to the analogies of hope our 
theme suggests. Unfavorable as to all human ap- 
pearances seemed the cause of David upon that 
night, that with his little band of fjiithful follow- 
ers he rested at Bahurim ; his confidence in God 
was still unshaken. " I laid me down and slept ; 
I awaked : for the Lord sustained me. I will not 
be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set 
themselves against me round about." 

And may we not cherish for ourselves, in this 
day of our national peril a like confidence ? Had 
David a single ground for his faith in the success 
of his cause that we do not possess ? Was that 
rebellion of Absalom any more unrighteous or 
wicked than that which is now deluging our coun- 
try with blood ? 

It was a fixlsehood for Absalom to say that Da- 
vid perverted judgment in Judea ; and it is equally 
false for any portion of this land to affirm that a 
single one of its constitutional rights were ever 
denied it. The great producing cause of both 
these rebellions was the lust of power. It was 
all ambition for place. Let the reins of this gov- 
ernment have always remained in the hands that 
now seek its overthrow, and let them have been 



25 



permitted to drive it wheresoever they listed, and 
they would never have lifted one finger against 
it. And with a dissimulation that cannot fail to 
suggest, the obsequiousness of Absalom, in kissing 
every man in Judea that came to make obeisance 
to him; has this revolt in our land been promoted. 
The possession of power under the Federal gov- 
ernment was largely used for its overthrow, and 
with loud professions of an earnest wish for com- 
promises, secret efforts were made to secure their 

defeat. 

Nor is this all There is in this American re- 
bellion one feature— in our apprehension supreme- 
ly unrighteous and wicked— that had no place in 
the rebellion in Judea. We refer, of course, to 
the avowed purpose of conserving and perpetuat- 
ing an institution, for clinging to which the hosts 
of Pharaoh were overwhelmed in the Red Sea ; 
and over which all our fathers in olden times, 
both North and South, were wont to weep. And 
now a rebellion thus conceived and promoted, will 
God prosper it ? A government with such a cor- 
ner-stone—a corner'stone laid in the falsehood that 
denies human equality, and personal liberty^^N'l\\ it 
ever be established ? We cannot believe it. As well 
think of Absalom's sitting down upon David's 



4 



26 

throne and Avearing David's purple, as such a pos- 
sibility in this land. 

And to this ground of the Psalmist's faith did he 
add the remembrance of past deliverances ? Did 
David believe that God would bring him out safely 
from this danger, because from similar jDcrils he 
had extricated him, may we ?iot do the same ? 

It is not over a sea entirely undisturbed by the 
winds of party or sectional strife, that — previous 
to this great storm — our vessel of state has been 
moving for more than half a century. Generally, 
enjoying a calm, she has yet ever and anon, en- 
countered a storm, in which many a less strongly 
built vessel would certainly have foundered. The 
despots of the old world have occasionally seen 
our political heavens darkened, and our ship of 
state careening, and apparently almost sinking 
before the rude blasts of political contention. Yet 
from all these storms, by the good hand of God 
upon her has she, at length, come out unharmed, 
and with sails filled with the soft breezes of peace 
and tranquility, has sped away joyfully on her 
course, with a nation's prayers, like guardian angels 
hovering round her track. 

One of these seasons of political danger was 
immediately after our national independence had 
been achieved, and before the Federal Constitu- 



27 

tion had been framed and adopted. The condi- 
tion of our country was then most critical. The 
union formed in the heat of the common struggle 
for freedom, evaporated in the very success of the 
energies that it had inspired. We had then no 
nationality, and in the endless clashing of sec- 
tional interests, good men feared we never could 
become one nation. 

As the members of that memorable convention 
which framed our federal constitution, were on 
the last day of the session affixing their names to 
it, Benjamin Franklin, looking towards the Presi- 
dent's chair, at the back of which a sun was 
painted, observed to those next to him, " I have 
often and often, in the course of the session, and 
the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its 
issue, looked at that sun behind the President, 
without being able to tell whether it was rising 
or setting." And in a letter written about the 
same time, by Washington to Lafeyette, we find 
the following emphatic declaration, " It appears 
to me little short of a miracle, that the delegates 
from so many States, different from each other, 
as you know, in their manners, circumstances, 
and prejudices, should unite in forming a system 



28 

of national government so little liable to well- 
founded objections.""* 

Another such season of national peril was con- 
sequent upon the declaration of war in 1812. 
To that measure, in some parts of the Union, the 
opposition was most violent. Strenuous exer- 
tions were made to embarrass the revenue. In 
some of our sea-ports the flags of the shipping 
were hoisted at half-mast, in token of mourning. 
The Governors of two States refused to furnish 
the required quota of soldiers, and finall}^ a con- 
vention of several States was called to inaugurate, 
— so far as its real design has ever been divulged, 
— Secession. 

Still another perilous season in our political 
history, was, when in 1820, it was proposed to 
admit Missouri, as a slaveholding State in the 
Union. I cannot stoj) to sketch that epoch. 
Some of my hearers remember it well, and know 
that Cassandras were not wanting then to predict 
the downfall of Troy, nor Edomites in their rage 
against this modern Jerusalem, to cry, " Raze it, 
raze, even to the foundations thereof." But in 
all these storms God was with us as a nation, and 
for the precious ark of our liberties prepared an 
Ararat. 



• Irving's Washington, vol. 4, p. 459. 



29 

And will he not clo so now ? Will He who in 
the jDast has " led us, instructed us, and kept us 
as the apple of His eye," now withdraw from us 
His protection ? It is in God's past mercies to 
this people that we find one ground for our hope 
of present deliverance. Our feelings are per- 
fectly identical with those of the Psalmist, and we 
are ready Avith him to exclaim, " Thou which 
hast showed me great and sore trouble, shalt 
quicken me again, and bring me again from the 
depths of the earth." " Thou shalt increase my 
greatness, and comfort me on every side." 

But David had, as we have seen, a still firmer 
and surer ground for his confidence in the over- 
throw of Absalom's rebellion. Deeply conscious 
of the sins of his people, the Psalmist still be- 
lieved that Israel had, under God, a great and 
divine mission of blessing to j^^i'foi'm to the 
world, and hence that her present affliction could 
not be intended for her destruction, but was only 
disciplinary. And are we not right in cherishing 
precisely the same views of our land in her pres- 
ent sorrow ? 

Like Israel of old, we are, indeed, a wicked 
people. Our sins are many and aggravated, and 
they are continually crying to heaven against us. 
We are proud. We are ever saying to the nations 



30 

of the earth, in the swelling of oiir national 
vanity, " Behold this great Babj'lon which we 
have built." We are covetous, greedy of gain, 
practical materialists, ever pampering the body 
and starving the soul. We are a remarkably in- 
temperate people. Drunkenness is a vice, perhaps 
more prevalent with us than with any other 
people in the world, either civilized or barbarous. 
We are forgetful of that divine command " Re- 
member the Sabbath day to keep it holy." In 
this very city, without a single one of those flimsy 
pretenses growing out of a large population, which 
seem to some, in other localities, to justify such 
conduct ; and for the single purpose of paying a 
larger dividend, the Lord's day is desecrated by 
the running of cars on our street railways. We 
are a wonderful extravagant people, and often- 
times in our determination to secure every com- 
fort and even luxury, for ourselves, reverse that 
famous motto of Christians in olden times, " No- 
thing for self; everything for thee, Lord." We 
have been guilty of the sin of oppression. We 
have held in unrighteous bondage millions of our 
fellow men, and what was more strange, if not 
more sinful, many have stoutly defended them- 
selves in their guilt. Unlike our noble revolution- 
ary fathers, and those who followed them in the first 



31 

quarter of a century of our existence as an inde- 
pendent people, and who, whether in politics. 
Federalists or Democrats, or by birth and resi- 
dence, Northerners or Southerners, all united in 
pronouncing American slavery to be both a political 
and moral evil ; many, now that it has become a 
question of political moment, and pecuniary inter- 
est, apologize for it ; and some, alas, even of the 
ministers of Christ, essay to defend it from the 
pages of the sacred oracles themselves. And to 
complete the catalogue of our iniquities, we should 
doubtless add many other things equally displeas- 
ing to God. 

But after saying all this, and everything else 
that can, in this direction, be said, we still cannot 
feel that, for our iniquities, God has, in this re- 
bellion, come out upon us in His wrath, and that 
He is about to consign us, as a nation, to reme- 
diless destruction. We, indeed, recognize our 
national sins, and the connection that exists be- 
tween them and our present sorrow ; but the con- 
nection is not, we believe, one of judgment and 
retribution, but of discipline and purification. The 
passage of Holy Writ that we think most aptly 
applies to this nation, is not those words of the 
old prophet of doom : " Behold the eyes of the 
Lord God are upon this sinful kingdom, and I will 



32 

destroy it from off the face of the earth ;" but ra- 
ther those sweet words of comfort that Christ 
spake to His own people : " Every branch that 
beareth fruit, He purgeth it that it may bring- 
forth more fruit." Our reading of the purpose of 
God toward this j)eople, in this terrible rebellion, 
is all summed up in the w^ords — " Chastened, but 
not killed.''^ " Chastened, but ?iot killed.^' 

But alas, is this process of moral purification 
yet completed? 

We acknowledge with gladness, to-day, the fact 
that something has in this direction been accom- 
plished. A document, recognizing so directly as 
the one appointing this day, as a day of humilia- 
tion and prayer, the great doctrines of God's sover- 
eignty and univervsal Providence, and above all, the 
indissoluble connection between national sins and 
national judgments, never before emanated either 
from the legislative, or executive department of 
our government. Heretofore also, with no ac- 
knowledgment of God in our coinage, we hail with 
delight the fact that we have now, at least one 
piece of money, bearing upon its face the inscrip- 
tion : " In God w^e trust." Thousands and tens 
of thousands, likewise, of those who were once en- 
slaved, are now enjoying the blessings of freemen. 
Some are bearing arms in our defence, others are 



tilling the ground for remunerative wages, and 
still others are in the way of securing for them- 
selves the priceless blessings of education. 

" Already on the sable ground 
Of man's despair 
Is freedom's glorious picture found. 
With all its dusky hands unbound, 
Upraised in prayer." 

How sad that we cannot continue this catalogue, 
and that that "scourge of cords" with which our 
blessed Master has been for these three years 
chastening us, has not yet expelled from this tem- 
ple of His habitation everything that defiled it. 
In those great national sins of pride, covetousness, 
extravagance, drunkenness, sabbath-breaking, we 
can see but little abatement. Indeed we fear 
sometimes, that these evils have waxed rather than 
waned in these days of our national trouble. And 
then as to that great sin, that was beyond all ques- 
tion the cause of this war, and that the Providence 
of God, so clearly indicates, is, through its instru- 
mentality, to be entirely removed from our land ; 
is there no guilty drawing back on our part, fear- 
ing that the price of universal freedom is too dear 
for us to -pay 1 

Hear me candidly on this point for a moment, 
for I do not, in this sacred place, utter the Shib- 



34 

boleth of any party, but speak only the language 
of Canaan. 

In everything that man has done to promote 
universal freedom in this land, are you faithless ? 
Do you honestly disapprove of all those measures, 
which have to this end been adopted, by our con- 
stituted authorities ? Let it he so. It is not the 
proper province of the pulpit, either to attack or 
defend the particular policy of any administra- 
tion. No minister of the Lord Jesus Christ 
should be a partisan. But are you faithless and 
unbelieving as to what God has done ? Is not 
this war an enigma that no man can solve — a 
perfectly inexplicable problem — a chaos of inter- 
mingling and conflicting occurrences, without po- 
larity, harmony, or design — if it was not in- 
tended by an all-wise Providence to eventuate in 
universal freedom ? Hecognizing this single fact, 
as the great purpose of God in this war, have we 
not at once a key to all its seeming contradictions ? 

I listen, and the bells of Liberty are now cir- 
cling the earth with their sweet chiming. Serf- 
dom in Russia lives only in historj^ Since the 
first clash of arms in this land, every yoke of 
bondage, in that mighty emj^ire, which we have 
been wont to regard as a despotism more compact 
and cold than her own hills of ice, has been 



35 

broken. Austria, until quite recently, the very 
embodiment of tyranny, has now proclaimed to 
religious faith, universal toleration. Italy has 
been rescued from her stagnant degradation, and 
is now moving on with rapid strides, in the way 
of an active and free self-development. Holland 
has just emancipated, in Surinam, 46,000 slaves, 
in a population of but 61,000; and even the em- 
peror of Brazil has intimated to the foreign am- 
bassadors, resident at his court, a purpose imme- 
diately to inaugurate in his realm some scheme of 
emancipation. 

And, oh I is all the world to go free, and America 
only to he a land of bondage ? Is there no lesson of 
instruction in these proclamations of freedom, that 
come to us from across the seas ? Rocked to our 
very centre by this great social convulsion, was 
it not all to the very intent, that over our moun- 
tains and valleys, and along the shores of our 
rivers and seas, that same hell of liberty now ringing 
in the old world might chime out its siveet notes ? 

And just here do we not see, the true reason 
why the victory tarries ; and also the peculiar 
appropriateness of the observance of such a day 
as this ? The work of moral purification is not 
yet completed. We have not yet given up those 
sins on account of which God has sent upon us 



36 

these judgments. And possibly, before we are 
brought to this point, God may need to hold us in 
the furnace for many more weary months, or 
even years. 

Physical defeats may be necessary, to secure 
moral victories, in the future, as they have been 
in the past. Clinging very firmly to our sins, we 
may have to be brought still lower in the valley 
of humility, before we will forsake them. " The 
plough-share of affliction may have to make a 
dee23er furrow, to reach the hard subsoil of our 
self-devotion." Our material wealth as a nation 
may need to be greatly reduced, before a gener- 
ous patriotism will supplant selfishness and party- 
spirit. But finally, the process ended, and the 
nation purged of those great sins which have so 
long polluted her fair fame, liberty and the bless- 
ings of brotherhood, secured to all who wear the 
form and possess the attributes of man, we doubt 
not but that the darts of some modern Joab will be 
thrust through the heart of this Absalom, and the 
trumpet of David be heard, calling back to their homes 
our pursuing hosts. 

And oh, amidst all the darkness of this night 
of gloom, is it not sweet to think of that coming 
day of glory; aye, more, to see, even now, break- 
ing over the distant hill-tops, its first bright 



o7 

morning beams ? This beautiful land, j^liysically, 
"the glory of all lands," with its Northern moun- 
tains, and Western j)rairies, and Southern savan- 
nahs ; and, intellectually, the home of a race, 
whose character, formed by the commingling of 
almost all European nationalities, is like, Corin- 
thian brass, for that very reason the more pre- 
cious : such a land, emerging from this terrible 
baptism of blood, purified from all the dross of 
sin, and thus starting out upon a new career of 
blessing ; will not that be a spectacle that angels 
will delight to behold ? May God hasten it, in 
our time, and all the praise shall be His forever 
and ever. Amen. 



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